


To Harry

by TheFreakWithTheWings



Series: Gift fics [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: 4+1 times, Canon Temporary Character Death, Gen, Kid!Harry Dresden, Master of Death Harry, Mentioned James Moriarty, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-26
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-27 01:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2673578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFreakWithTheWings/pseuds/TheFreakWithTheWings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>to harry:<br/>(verb)<br/>to persistently carry out attacks on an enemy.</p><p>Four times Harry Potter saved young Harry Dresden and one time he killed adult Harry Dresden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Harry

**Author's Note:**

> This is a really belated birthday present for my friend Gabby. Happy Birthday and sorry it's so late.

  1. **Entropy Curse**




 

The first time Harry Potter met Harry Dresden it was Halloween. The shade of a dead woman watched over them while her body lay on a nearby bed, and Luna held Harry Dresden while he screamed his displeasure at being brought forth into the world from his mother’s womb. He wasn’t more than few minutes old.

 

When Harry the elder had woken up that morning, he hadn’t known that a trip across dimensions was in store. As the Master of Death, he was sometimes called upon to help people cross over if they had been killed with particularly nasty works of magic, but he usually worked from his home dimension. Still, Margaret Dresden had been killed with an entropy curse, while her husband was away, just seconds after giving birth. Her son didn’t even have a name yet.

 

If he had wagered about any of his friends being able to travel dimensions, Harry would have put his money first on Hermione because she would have found some way to bend the Laws of magic to her will and then on Luna simply because she didn’t recognize that magic had any limits. Still, he had been surprised to see Luna holding the screaming, red-faced baby of the woman whose soul he had just been called upon to collect.

 

Luna, on the other hand, seemed to find nothing weird about Harry’s presence in another world. She smiled absently at him before turning back to the baby in her arms.

 

“The stars sang of his birth, Harry.” she said dreamily.

 

He stood next to her and stared down over her shoulder at the baby. It had stopped crying now and was desperately trying to breathe.

 

Margaret Dresden would not be the only victim of the entropy curse tonight; the curse hadn’t been able to distinguish between the mother and the baby until he had been born. Harry could feel death creeping over the infant as slow and sure as the tide.

 

“Is that why you’re here?” he asked.

 

“You must save him,” Luna said instead of answering. “Or the Others will leech this world of all things.”

 

“Who are the Others?”

 

She turned to look at him and tilted her head to one side. “Don’t you see them every time you go somewhere else?”

 

Harry sucked in a startled breath. This child would have the power to fight the hungry beings that lurked beyond the reaches of the worlds.

 

“How is this possible?” he demanded.

 

Luna smiled at him as if he was a child who had asked a question with an obvious answer. “The rules are always broken on this night Harry, and the stars have chosen him as their champion.”

 

She turned around and placed the baby in his arms. Harry awkwardly cradled the rapidly purpling infant while Luna stared at him expectantly.

 

“Does he have a name yet?” Harry asked.

 

“The day you learn his name will be the day he dies, so,” Luna said solemnly. “You should help him before it becomes today.”

 

Harry nodded and closed his eyes, reaching with his own magic for the remnants of the deadly magic that were slowly killing the child of Margaret Dresden. The entropy curse struggled briefly to kill him before it faded away, powerless against the Master of Death.

 

The baby sucked in a deep breath and began to cry again while the shade of his mother smiled before she faded, gone to whatever afterlife awaited the people of this world. Because the curse had killed her in a way that wasn't magical, she hadn't needed Harry’s aid to depart.

 

Luna pulled the baby from his arms and set him down in a cradle that hadn’t been there the moment before. Then she slipped her hand into Harry’s and pulled him from that dimension.

 

Before they left, he could have sworn that he saw the mark of the Deathly Hallows on the baby’s forehead.

 

  1. **Knight of the Blackened Denarius**




 

Three years later, Harry felt a harsh, insistent tugging from under his sternum.

 

He had almost forgotten about the baby that he had saved on a Halloween night in another dimension and would never have connected the tugging under his sternum to the infant if Luna hadn’t barged into his house.

 

“Don’t let the starchild touch any Sickles.” was the first thing she said to him when she walked through the door.

 

“What?” Harry asked, his brow furrowed.

 

Luna didn’t reply. Instead, she smiled at him before she pushed on his chest and sent him reeling into another world.

 

Things with too many hands and not enough limbs grasped at him while he fell through the space between worlds.

 

He landed heavily on the street of an unknown city. His back ached from the impact and his stomach rolled from the tumultuous trip to another dimension courtesy of Luna. Harry definitely preferred his method of travel to hers.

 

He pushed himself to his feet and staggered, vertigo making his head spin. He cursed his crazy friend under his breath as he prepared to step back to his home, but then the tugging under his sternum became even more emphatic.

 

It had a more definite direction now, and it appeared to be pulling him towards the toddler who was hitting a ball with a stick across the street from where Harry was standing. He couldn't' have been more than three years old, and he looked familiar. Something about the toddler tugged faintly at his memories.

 

The little boy turned around, and Harry caught a glimpse of the symbol of the Deathly Hallows on his forehead.

 

Harry's eyes widened in sudden realization as he remembered where he had seen the toddler before now. He was the baby that had nearly been killed by a type of killing curse. He was probably the starchild Luna had been talking about. But why would he need to stop him from picking up any Sickles?

 

The boy crouched down and stared at something shiny that had fallen from an apartment window a few stories above him. The sound it made hitting the pavement must have drawn his attention. He picked it up, and before he put it in his pocket Harry could see that it was a shiny silver coin, similar to a Sickle.

 

The toddler didn't feel like completely human anymore. In the same way that he had sensed the slow creep of the entropy curse he now felt something sinister, dark, and sulfurous lurking behind the boy's presence.

 

Somehow, he had to get the coin away from the toddler before it did whatever it was supposed to do. He could ask the child, but it would probably take too long for him to get the boy to agree, and the boy would want to keep his treasure. So, Harry pulled out the Elder Wand (because his other wand didn't work well in other dimensions) and pointed at the boy's pocket.

 

"Accio coin." he whispered.

 

It resisted him at first, trying to stay with the boy, but finally it gave in and flew towards him. However, Harry could still sense a connection between the boy, who was now crying over the hole in his pocket, and the coin, which radiated evil intent in a way that was reminiscent of a horcrux. He could feel it calling to him, suggesting that he pick up the coin, just touch it once, but Harry had experience dealing with horcruxes.

 

So, he conjured up a handkerchief, picked up the coin, and stepped back into his dimension to properly deal with the malicious coin. The sword of Gryffindor would do nicely, he decided.

 

  1. **Baobhan sith**




 

Another three years passed before Harry was called upon to protect the boy again. This time, he knew what the tugging beneath his sternum meant, and Luna didn’t have to break down his door to get him to the boy’s side.

 

The little boy was curled up on his side on a small cot, fast asleep. Traces of tears were visible on his cheeks.

 

Yet it wasn’t the boy’s sorrow that caught his attention first; it was the predatory woman that was gliding towards the boy. She was astonishingly beautiful, although if he was asked later Harry wouldn’t be able to recall just what it had been that had made her look so alluring. The woman was wearing a green dress and… she had cloven hooves for feet.

 

Harry shook his head and looked again, but she still had cloven hooves where bare feet should have been. Unfortunately, his actions had the side effect of catching the woman’s attention.

 

For a second, she seemed to be snarling at him, but then her furious expression was wiped away, replaced by one he had seen on far too many women and a few men.

 

“What is a man such as you doing here?” she purred.

 

Harry’s eyes widened and he backed away from her, his hands in the air. “I was just, ummm, leaving.” He smiled nervously, edging towards the door. “Bye.”

 

The inhuman woman just laughed. “Come, let us dance.”

 

He could feel a compulsion settle over him, telling him to do whatever she wanted. It had nothing on the Imperius Curse though, so he was able to shake it off easily.

 

He raised an eyebrow, all traces of nervousness vanished. "That wasn't very nice."

 

She narrowed her eyes, all friendliness gone. "You are no mere mortal."

 

He grinned. "What gave me away?"

 

A predator knows to back away when facing a bigger one. Unfortunately, the woman didn't know that he was a bigger predator than she was.

 

She scowled. "I must deliver the boy to my Lady."

 

"The boy is under my protection. You shall not take him." Harry said.

 

"The Queen Who Will Be will have your head for this transgression." she hissed.

 

"Your Queen is no threat to me. Tell her that Death's Master protects this child."

 

Her eyes widened in true fear before she turned and ran from the room as fast as her cloven hooves could carry her.

 

Harry snorted before turning to the little boy who was now wide awake and staring at him in fear.

 

“Who are you?” he asked.

 

Harry smiled. “I’m a friend.”

 

  1. **Naagloshii**




 

When four years passed without any sort of warning whatsoever that his young friend was in danger, Harry decided to check up on him, just in case. He knew that most children didn’t face danger on a regular, for example, yearly, basis like he had, but he just wanted to make sure. The kid’s birthday had been Halloween, after all.

 

When Harry arrived in his young friend’s home dimension, he was at a school that seemed similar to the school that the Dursleys had tried to send him off to before Hogwarts. It was a bright sunny day, and there seemed to be some sort of athletic competition going on.

 

His young friend was participating in a pointless exercise: jumping over hurdles. He was doing fine, but the other kids were catching up to him.

 

All of a sudden there was a swell of magic, and the boy soared over the last hurdle, going far beyond what was possible for a human who hadn’t spent long hours training for the Olympics could do. Luna’s starchild was a wizard.

 

The symbol of the Deathly Hallows flared brightly on his forehead, but Harry was the only one who was able to see it. He  got the feeling that this would be the last time he saw the boy; in the eyes of Magic he was an adult and no longer needed the Master of Death babysitting him.

 

Then, Harry felt the tugging which he knew from two past occasions meant his young friend was in danger. This time, however, he wasn't drawn towards the boy. Instead, the tugging led him to a man who looked like he was the P. E. teacher, if what Harry could remember from his terrible childhood was correct. Like Harry, the coach was staring at his young friend. However, when Harry approached the man, his nostrils flared and he turned, head tilted, towards him. Something about the movement was off, and anyone who was at all familiar with the magical world would have been able to tell that he wasn't human.

 

"Wizard," The teacher whispered breathlessly as it stepped forward and pulled them into the magically saturated world that existed just to the right of this one. His- its- smile had too many teeth. "You shall make a fine meal."

 

Harry smiled back just as toothily. "Stronger men than you have tried to kill me."

 

The inhuman thing, no matter how many shapes it shifted into, was basically useless against Harry. Why it had thought getting him alone was a smart idea, he had no idea. However, he could tell that the shapeshifter was young, so he simply obliviated all of its memories, turned it into a baby, and inserted it into a world with no magic under the name James Moriarty. He could only hope that it used its second chance to do something good with its life.

 

  1. **Himself**




 

One of the things Harry hated the most about being the Master of Death - aside from the collecting of souls - was being summoned. He had enough problems with regular magical travel, and his discomfort increased exponentially whenever he was summoned to another dimension.

 

So he was more than a little irritated when he found himself inside a summoning circle in another dimension. A tall, black, hooded figure with glowing green eyes stood next to a woman who was as inhumanly beautiful as a single snowflake and as breathtakingly cruel as a crushing blizzard. The dead body of a tall man lay stretched out on a table behind them, and a single lamp hung from the ceiling of the cave.

 

Harry climbed to his feet, carefully staying inside the complex circle. No need to let his summoners know that summoning circles did nothing more than bring him from one place to another.

 

In his somewhat limited experience with summonings, he had found that the summoners revealed more if he let them speak first. So, he stood in the center of the circle, completely immobile.

 

Minutes passed.

 

The cold woman’s annoyance visibly grew, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, but he suspected that it was an act. Therefore, he was unsurprised when the hooded figure spoke first.

 

“YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED UPON TO RETRIEVE THE SOUL OF HARRY DRESDEN SO THAT HE MAY AWAKEN.”

 

Right, so the man on the table wasn’t dead; he was just missing his soul.

 

Harry smiled thinly at the summoners. “Of course.”

 

Then he stepped out of the circle.

 

Their reactions weren’t at all what he expected. The cold woman looked smug, as if he had just told her all of his secrets and wanted him to know that she knew them while the hooded figure didn’t react at all. Harry felt momentarily disappointed; people typically reacted much more strongly when they realized that he wasn’t under their control. There was usually screaming or fainting.

 

So, Harry walked over to the other Harry’s body and rested his hand above the other man’s heart. The symbol of the Deathly Hallows flashed underneath his hand, and Harry’s eyes widened in sudden understanding. The prophecy that Luna had told him so many years ago was finally coming to pass. Yet Harry Dresden wasn’t dead.

 

A soul was connected to its body even after it had left it, especially if the body was still alive, so he was able to follow the link between the man’s body and his soul and begin pulling his soul back from wherever it had been.

 

It was slow work, and Harry had to start over many times whenever he lost his grip on the man’s soul. For some reason, the other Harry didn’t want to come back to life.

 

Yet he had grown up with the mark of the Deathly Hallows on him, and that meant that he wouldn’t be able to escape into death quite so easily. There was more hardship in the future for Harry Dresden.

 

Even though Harry hated himself for doing this, he severed the connection the other Harry’s soul had with his body then grabbed the soul before it could abscond to whatever afterlife the other man had earned. A softly glowing ball of silvery light appeared in his hand, and he shoved the man’s soul into his chest.

 

Harry Dresden’s body arched up off the table and a hoarse scream ripped itself from his throat. The cold woman’s eyes glittered with triumph while the hooded figure remained impassive.

 

The Master of Death placed his hand on the other man’s forehead and wandlessly sent him to sleep. He looked up from his work and glared at the two beings that had summoned him.

 

“Don’t summon me again.” he ordered curtly.

 

The hooded figure nodded. The cold woman sniffed disdainfully. Harry decided to take that as a sign of assent, so he stepped out of that dimension and headed home, hoping he would never be called upon to help the other Harry again. Dying once was more than enough for most people.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> To those of you waiting for an update on my other fics, I'm working on them. I should have one of them updated tomorrow, so yay!


End file.
